The Most Stylish Movie You've Never Heard Of

The protagonist in 'The Great Beauty' may be searching for substance, but boy, does he have style

The Great Beauty, a new movie from Italy, is receiving all sorts of accolades. It's been nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film and won best picture, actor, director, and editing at the European Film Awards earlier this month. It's also Italy's official entry for the Oscars. All of it is well-deserved.

The film is directed by 43-year-old Paolo Sorrentino, whose reputation is growing with each picture. Two years ago he directed This Must Be the Place, which starred Sean Penn, and in 2008 he won the Jury Prize at Cannes for Il Divo, his brilliant portrait of the inscrutable seven-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti.

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The Great Beauty is an episodic critique of a comatose, post-Berlusconi Italy and specifically of Rome's chattering classes. It centers around Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo, who also starred as Andreotti), the most stylish man in a movie right now, a writer whose only novel—forty years ago!—was a literary masterwork and, apparently, quite the best-seller.

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He still writes for a newspaper (his editor is a dwarf) but as he turns 65, he alternatelylooks back on his life and jumps from party to party. He came to Rome all those years ago to be "king of the high life" and he still kind of is. He's repelled by it, but can't bear an alternative. He's an amalgam of Jay McInerney (yes, there's cocaine), Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese, though a less prolific.

The Great Beauty has been likened to Fellini's La Dolce Vita, though (and this may be heresy to say) it has a lot more on its mind. And it is, as the title suggests, a beautiful film. (Hint: stay for the credits.)

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As Jep strolls the city streets during his passeggiata looking for meaning, in Rome, in Italy, in life, he does so with impeccable style. One can only hope to look that good at 65 (though Servillo is actually only 54). His clothes are elegant but not stuffy, carefully chosen but seemingly effortless, up-to-date but not achingly trendy.

The costume designer for the film is Daniela Ciancio, who has been at it for 20 years and was mentored by Piero Tosi, who will receive an Honorary Academy Award in March. In an e-mail interview last week, she said that she and the director had challenging debates regarding the characters. "I practically dressed their souls," she said.

Jep Gambardella's clothes, she continued, "are meant to reveal his soul—full and empty at the same time…for this purpose, I mixed Armani with the colored custom-made suit of the traditional Neapolitan brand Cesare Attolini." (The movie is about Rome, but Sorrentino and Servillo, and his character Jep, are from Naples, that cursed and blessed city that produces gangsters from hell and tailors—and footballers and pizzaioli—from heaven.)

Indeed, Jep, or rather Daniela Ciancio, has an eye for color. Notice those blazers, the great shades of yellow, burnt orange, and, while he's on the hammock, pale blue, and how perfectly they play off the white pants. (Occasionally he'll does all-white—like Tom Wolfe).Notice the pocket square, not folded and shyly peeking out (the trend here at the moment), but in full bloom. And look at the shoes. Two-tone, brown-and-beige brogues. "The shoes, of course," Ciancio said, "can only be from Tod's and Hogan!"

For eyewear (Jep is like an NBA player who uses glasses only when they suit a sartorial mood), she used Luxottica. For hats (yes, he can pull those off, too), she used Marzi from Florence. For ties, Tino Cosma. Ciancio used only Gucci for one female character; for another, Biagiotti and Dusan. Exhausted souls never looked so good. Among the other labels Ciancio used: the Boglioli brothers (still under-recognized here in the U.S.), Martino Midali, Panizza, Lorenzo Riva, and Colmar.

All Italian designers, by the way. Italy, as the film suggests, may be falling apart. At least it's not falling apart at the seams.

Michael J. Agovino is the author of The Bookmaker. His next book, The Soccer Diaries, will be out in the spring.